Update

So the highlights of the month was going to the Temple in Seoul, visiting the Demilitarized Zone, helping out with the Mission Zone Blitz of Gunsan, finding the big Buddhist Temple site here in Gunsan, and visiting the Bird Observatory also in Gunsan. During the Mission Blitz we went with a ward member to visit a less active family and they have a daughter who is 14 and speaks English very well so we were able to talk with her a lot. Her name is Ji Sun. The following week we went to the same families house with the missionaries and had a good time getting to know the family even better. Liji and I had been wanting to play badminton but we couldn’t find the courts so we asked Ji Sun if she would take us to them and play with us. The following day she took us to the courts and we had such a great time. We spent a few hours with her and she showed us many new things that we hadn’t found on our own yet. It was exciting. I think we built a lot of “chung” which is a word that they have here for a close friendship. It is something that is very important to the Korean people and the Elder’s said that there isn’t really an English word to translate it to.
Saturday we went to the Bird Observatory here. The bike ride there was beautiful. It was on a path going right along the bay near our apartment. There weren’t a whole lot of different birds there when we went but they had a lot of other things to see as well. There was a 3-D movie we watched about birds. We couldn’t understand anything they were saying about the birds but it was cool to see the birds fly right up to our face. They also had a bunch of birds on display. Then outside there were some pretty huge vultures, owls, peacocks, parrots, and many other really small species of birds. They also had an insect display and a reptile display. They had a small zoo; which consisted of two adult deer, a very sick baby deer, rabbits, and some wondering birds. The baby deer was just lying off by this fence and I thought it was very newly born because it was so small but I think it was just really sick. Liji started throwing some tiny pebbles near, not at the deer to see if she would stand up. Well she tried to stand up but was so sick her front legs had no stability and she just flopped off. It was like the saddest thing ever. Liji was like about to cry because he felt so bad for making her try and get it. We have no idea how or why she got so sick but it was definitely sad.
Our records came into the Branch at the Air Base and we were given some callings. Liji and I were called to be Sunday School Teacher’s which Liji was especially excited about. And President asked me to play the piano for our meetings. I had kind of seen it coming because the girl who was accompanying the meetings before we got here went back home only a few weeks after we got here and the only other person to fill in and play is one of the Elders who only took piano lessons until he was 8. I played for a while longer than he did but I have not been serious about practicing the piano in a long time and for me it doesn’t really come all that quickly. If I’m going to play a song really well with no mistakes I have to practice it a lot, which is kind of hard to do here since we don’t have a piano so the only place for me to practice is at the church. I am pretty nervous about this. I have now played for our meetings one Sunday and it went pretty well. But I only played the right hand because even though I had practiced with both hands I was just too nervous to try it out because it is much more confusing for me when I mess up and am trying to find my spot when I am playing with both hands. I guess I will just try and ease my way into this. I had never played as an accompanist and it is much harder than just playing on your own. Usually when I mess up while playing on my own I can just play that note over correctly, but when your playing for a group you just have to try and get back onto the next note correctly and make sure that you are staying with the tempo and man, it can be very tricky. I know that as I build up the songs that I can play well then it will just get easier though; so I can see the bright light at the end of this and I am looking forward to try and regain my piano skills. Wish me luck!